Better lives through stronger bones

Better lives through stronger bones

A new South Melbourne business is promising better health through a simple way to grow bone density.

OsteoStrong, at 378 Clarendon St, is the first Australian franchise of a business which started in the US and has spread to Europe.

The system safely puts bones and joints under a proper amount of pressure and more than can be achieved by other means, such as running, jumping or jogging.  

According to Franchisee and director Wutti Oparkcharoen, research shows that we need to apply load equivalent to 4.2 times our body weight to trigger bone growth in the hip and femur. 

This means that a 60kg person would need to apply force equivalent to about 250kg through the lower body and this cannot be safely achieved in typical modalities such as weight bearing exercise or jogging.

Mr Oparkcharoen told Docklands News that members could increase their bone density through a single 10-minute supervised session each week.

“There’s nothing else like this out there,” he said. “There’s no sweat, there’s no pain, you can come in your normal clothes and minimum effort gives maximum results.”

Four proprietary, robotic musculoskeletal development machines are at the heart of OsteoStrong. One is for upper skeleton, one for lower (femur and hip), one for core (upper pelvis and lower rib cage) and one machine for postural and spine.

The machines are designed to allow members to safely exert pressure on different parts of the skeleton and were invented by biomechanical expert, Dr John Jaquish, who became interested in bone density after his mother developed osteoporosis.

He observed that gymnasts had the strongest bones of any athletes, although too much stress on their joints often meant an early retirement from competitive sport.

“So he invented these machines to emulate such impacts, but without the risks that come with it,” Mr Oparkcharoen said. “That’s why we call it a high-impact emulation and it triggers osteogenesis or bone building.”

He said OsteoStrong internationally worked with members ranging from 10 to 95 years old.

But, he said, some 90 per cent OsteoStrong members renewed their memberships year after year because it works and because it is easily accommodated into their busy lifestyles.

“Most people don’t know that after the age of 30, you start to lose one to two per cent of bone density per year and up to five per cent per year for women during menopause.  We now know that your central nervous system will not allow you to have a muscle strength that your skeleton cannot handle,” Wutti said.

“As we get older, and our skeletal system becomes weaker, our muscles also become weaker.”

“Because your central nervous system is a smart engineering team, it is trying to protect you.  You cannot have too much muscle strength that your bones can’t handle.  A good analogy would be that you can’t put a Ferrari motor engine in a Corolla because it would shatter the chassis.”

“We’ve always accepted that we are going to get weaker as we get older but now, with this new OsteoStrong technology, it is the first time in human history that you can choose not to accept that growing older means growing weaker.  You can choose to continue doing what you love and maintain the independence.”

Mr Oparkcharoen also said OsteoStrong helped with balance, joint and back pain as well as long term blood glucose (HbA1c).

“What we do at OsteoStrong is increase muscle density, rather than the size. When you have more muscle density, it allows your body to process blood glucose better.”

“Research shows that when joints are subject to compressive loads, tendon and ligament become stronger.  Members from overseas living with joint pain such as osteoarthritis have reported that they had substantially reduced or eliminated pain.”

He said OsteoStrong helped professional athletes by increasing strength, power, agility, balance as well as injury risk reduction through stronger bones and joints. 

OsteoStrong South Melbourne opened last year and Wutti and his staff are offering Docklands News readers a complimentary first session, which includes a bone density scan.

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